Missing Energy Studies at the DØ Experiment

Author

Hogan, Julie

Date

2013-07-24

Advisor

Corcoran, Marjorie D.

Degree

Master of Science

Abstract

Missing transverse energy is an important aspect of physics analyses at hadron collider detectors. While other particles can be identified by the energy they deposit in the detector, the presence of neutrinos and other theorized particles must be inferred by an energy imbalance.
At the DØ experiment missing energy algorithms exist not only to calculate the missing energy in an event, but to distinguish between possible sources: detector measurement effects or unobserved particles. DØ scientists rely on these algorithms to produce reliable physics results. This thesis presents updates made in the past year to missing energy certification, the unclustered energy resolution, and the missing energy significance calculation. It describes a new processor which calculates missing momentum from tracks as well as development work toward an unclustered energy calibration.